The opening scenes of The Final Season immediately made me think of Field of Dreams, which makes sense given that both movies take place in Iowa. Despite this, and even though both are baseball movies, the two films are really quite different.
The Final Season is a 2007 movie based on the true story of the Norway High School baseball team in Iowa. The story takes place primarily during the 1991 season, and Norway High School is on the verge of being merged into a larger school district. The town is devastated and angry at the idea of losing the high school’s legendary baseball program, which has won nineteen state championships. While the town battles the state to try to prevent the merger, the school’s principal, who favors the merger, tries to facilitate a losing season for the baseball team in order to show the merger would be worthwhile.
The baseball team’s legendary baseball coach, Jim Van Scoyoc (played by Powers Boothe), is forced to sit out what is expected to be the team’s final season. In his place, the principal appoints Kent Stock (played by Sean Astin), who previously coached girls volleyball. The principal believes that this move will cause the baseball program to fail, not realizing that Stock had been a star player for his Division III college baseball team.
At first, the players are resistant to playing for Stock, not believing he can fill Van Scoyoc’s shoes, but Stock manages to win them over. While his style is unsurprisingly different from the former coach, Stock finds ways to motivate the team amidst the ongoing battle over the merger.
In May 1991, Norway does win its 20th state championship, but the victory is bittersweet as it proves to be the team’s last-ever season.
I enjoyed this movie, and I like how it is based on a true story. I really enjoyed how the town of Norway embraced its baseball team. High school baseball, in particular, hardly ever gets noticed in general, but for Norway, high school baseball was literally part of their way of life. The townspeople even attended the team’s practices, because it meant so much to them. School districts merging is a phenomenon that happens all the time, and this film shows that such moves always have repercussions that go beyond just the schools themselves.
